Make a Resolution to Read More Poetry Next Year
Three years ago, I made a New Year's resolution to read more poetry and try new poems by authors I hadn't read before. Except for the year when I resolved to buy more shoes, this was the best resolution I'd ever made. I believe that our yearly resolutions should bring us more happiness so I've decided to renew my poetry resolution for the coming year: I resolve that in 2020 I will actively seek out poetry books, and read more poems. I will not just enjoy them when I stumble across one on a subway poster, or in some other unexpected place.
When I made my poetry resolution in 2017 and posted it on Facebook, I was immediately invited to a "Burns Night Supper" by a friend who had not known that I liked poetry. A Burns Night Supper celebrates the birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns every year on January 25. At the dinner, a bagpiper was hired to start the evening off, haggis (the national dish of Scotland) was served,and we sat around the table reading Robert Burns poems aloud, drinking whiskey (some of us), and having a fantastic time.
Not all poetry will speak to you, but when you find a poem that does, you want to write it down and keep it forever. A good poem plays with language; it describes an image or feeling in a way that crystalizes it for you. Sometimes you read a poem and feel that the poet peered into your heart and understood your emotions in ways that you didn’t think another human being could. And sometimes poems make you laugh.
If you want to add more poetry to your life this year, remember—you can like poetry, without liking all poems. When reading a book of poetry, feel free to skip any poems that you aren’t enjoying, there will be more to try in the same book, or another one.
Here are some poetry collections I've selected to start you on your reading adventure:
American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time selected and introduced by Tracy K. Smith
American Journal presents 50 contemporary poems that explore and celebrate our country and our lives. We hear stories from rural communities and urban centers, laments of loss in war and in grief, experiences of immigrants, outcries at injustices, and poems that honor elders, evoke history, and praise our efforts to see and understand one another.
Ballistics: New Poems by Billy Collins
The former U.S. poet laureate and best-selling author of Nine Horses and Around the Room presents a new compilation of his acclaimed poems, some of which have never before been published.
The Dream Songs by John Berryman
This volume collects both 77 Dream Songs, which won Berryman the Pulitzer Prize in 1965, and their continuation, His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, which was awarded the National Book Award and the Bollingen Prize in 1969. The Dream Songs are witty and wild, an account of madness shot through with searing insight, winking word play, and moments of pure, soaring elation.
Fuel: Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye
A collection of poems that find meaning in a world where we are "so tired of meaning nothing", Fuel covers topics ranging from the border families of southern Texas to small ferns and forgotten books to Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East.
Incredible Good Fortune: New Poemsby Ursula K. Le Guin
These warm, funny, and eloquent poems, spanning the years 2000 to 2005, by the celebrated author of Always Coming Home and The Language of the Night, showcase Le Guin’s many facets as a writer.
Night Angler by Geffrey Davis
Davis' second collection of poems reads as an evolving love letter and meditation on what it means to raise an American family. In poems that express a deep sense of gratitude and wonder, Davis delivers a heart-strong prayer that longs for home, for safety for black lives, and for the messy success of breaking through the trauma of growing up during the crack epidemic to create a new model of fatherhood.
Poems that Make Grown Women Cry: 100 Women on the Words that Move Them edited by Anthony Holden and Ben Holden
The poems chosen range from the 8th century to today. Their themes range from love and loss, through mortality and mystery, war and peace, to the beauty and variety of nature. This unique collection delivers private insights into the minds of women whose writing, acting, and thinking are admired around the world.
Rumi: Unseen Poems translated and edited by Brad Gooch and Maryam Mortaz
Rumi's poetry has long been popular with contemporary Western audiences because of the way it combines the sacred and the sensual, describing divine love in rapturously human terms.
A Sleepwalk on the Severn by Alice Oswald
A reflective, book-length poem in several registers, using dramatic dialogue. Ghostly, meditative, and characterized by Alice Oswald’s signature sensitivity to nature, the poem chronicles a night on the Severn Estuary as the moonrise travels through its five stages: new moon, half moon, full moon, no moon, and moon reborn.
Venture of the Infinite Man by Pablo Neruda, translated by Jessica Powell
In an epic poem comprised of 15 cantos spread over 44 un-numbered pages, the Infinite Man sets forth on a virtual sleepwalk through time and space, on a quest to atone for [Neruda's] past and to rediscover himself.
Whereas: Poems by Stephen Dunn
Finding beauty in the ordinary, this collection considers the superstition and sophistry embedded in everyday life, allowing room for more rethinking, reflection, revision, prayer, and magic in the world.
Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.
Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources, and sometimes edited for clarity and length. Click through to each book’s title for more.Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!